


The Unquiet Grave

by jamlocked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Euriarty, F/M, M/M, Madness, Mentions of Death, Mormor (ish), Sheriarty - Freeform, Suicide, TRF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-06 21:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12218991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamlocked/pseuds/jamlocked
Summary: The rooftop of Barts...and things go horribly wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

The conversation has been reverberating around his head for a year. The possibilities of it. Things that will definitely be said. Things that need to be said. Things that need to happen as a result. Every possible permutation of it, on a reel, endless. And every word with the delightful possibility of _surprise_ ; the chance – however small – that Sherlock will go off-script. He is the only person in the world for whom Jim still holds that hope, barring his sister – but Eurus doesn’t count, because she’s not available to play. And she’s not as much fun. She’s not him. She’s not everything.

The day comes, on his cue. It’s a cold, beautiful morning. Jim is not sentimental about anything, least of all what he’ll see on his last day on this godforsaken planet. Blue sky, grey sky, it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter. But he gets blue, and cold, and it frames Sherlock’s face beautifully as the words play out exactly as planned, no surprises, nothing out of the ordinary. He’s disappointed underneath the excitement of simply being near him, and feeling the pull of that great mind. But he knows the disappointment won’t last for long. In a few seconds – right… _now_ , there’s the hint, the key to it all, the whole point of this.

‘I’m certainly not going to do it.’

He strolls away. He is calm, he is cool, he is collected. He is excited, burning with hope; with relief. _Soon soon soon_. Any minute. Nearly there. Come _on_ , Sherlock.

There comes the sound of a shoe twisting on concrete, and he almost smiles. That’s it, turn. Step down. Say what you’re supposed to say, be who you’re supposed to be, and then this can be over.

‘You win, Moriarty.’

He falters mid-stride. Before the sentence is finished, before his foot lands, before his ears have processed the words, his brain is screaming. _Screaming_. He spins, heart thumping in his throat. He can’t unclench his jaw. And Sherlock’s arms are spreading, the great black wings of his coat in the breeze, and he tries to say _no_ but there is no air in his lungs.

And then Sherlock is gone.

Jim’s mind counts without prompting, because it is made entirely of numbers. 4…3…2… Velocity, mass, force of impact; the mathematical calculation of death lands behind his eyes with the same certainty that makes everything in life unbearable.

…1.

And a _thud_. A distant snap, or six. An instant scream.

And Sherlock Holmes is gone.

Jim stays very still, for a very long time. Somewhere below, people are doing what people do. His phone is buzzing constantly; the messages will say, _move, you’ve got to move, they’re coming_ , over and over, and he should but he can’t. He is aware only of how cold the air is on his face and how he can feel it, when he shouldn’t be feeling anything anymore. The gun is heavy in its holster under his arm. It holds one bullet. It-

He’s on his knees. His phone is ringing. It cuts to voicemail, goes quiet, starts ringing again. There are sirens. People in a hurry below, but not too much of one because there’s only so much haste required with a corpse. Water is seeping into the knees of his Westwood suit. And he should do what he came here to do, but he can’t. It was-

Hands are grabbing his shoulders. He’s dragged up, then out. He allows it, and the car, and can’t hear anything or see anything because the world is a shifting dream he is on the outside of. There is only the screaming of his head, which has not stopped and, he thinks, never will.

And then it goes dark. Mercifully; silent.

 

*

 

Jim has only seen Moran once in his life. It was the day he hired him. He’s not a bodyguard; Jim has no need of protection and, more importantly, doesn’t want it. He’s a sniper, sent to kill people. He has strict instructions to keep out of the way, and make sure his phone is switched on at all times. If he doesn’t jump when told, he’ll be killed by his replacement.

‘Do you want a drink?’

The words trickle through the terrible noise. Jim is aware that it’s going to take a minute, give or take three seconds, to get his body to work. He is _acutely_ aware of not being in control of himself, which means he has to be alone. He closes his eyes. He feels, rather than hears, Moran shift.

‘Look, I know it was against instructions. But they were coming up the stairs. Getting caught was never in the plan, and seeing as I didn’t have to kill-‘

Does the man really think he needs to explain himself? Jim would laugh if he were capable. If he weren’t on the edge of an abyss in his own mind, still halted mid-step up on that roof, waiting to put his foot down and tumble into endless darkness. He’s not sure why he hasn’t. He can’t actually move at all.

‘Boss? Could you say something? You don’t look….good.’

He’s at fifty-three seconds, and muscles are finally getting the message. One deep breath, and a mental blast against the noise, pushing back against it, trying to clear even one second of clear thought. He uses it to get to his feet, and drift towards the door. There is no space for words.

‘…boss?’

He opens the door, walks through, and closes it behind him. He has no idea where he is, or where he’s going. He’s supposed to be dead. Sherlock was not supposed to _fail_. He wasn’t…he can’t…

…no. No no no, he can’t, he can’t think about it, he can’t _breathe_. He clutches the wall, and tries to keep himself upright. Sherlock’s wings spread against a clear blue sky, and the air is very cold. He falls. Jim falls. And that’s fine. That’s as it should be.

 

*

 

His phone is playing a very specific ringtone. It’s only ever played it once before. He can’t answer it.

Moran is shirtless. The dressing over the stab wound is very white against his tanned skin. Jim’s brain supplies _Dubai_ , and then everything _about_ Dubai, including the three days the man must have spent there between the two jobs Jim sent him on last month. It’s a distraction from the noise, and the way Sherlock keeps falling. And the fact of his hands being tied to the bed.

‘I’m getting you out of the country.’

Jim wonders why the lump in his throat won’t stop him breathing. He wants it to, and doesn’t want it to. Death should be a show, it should make a statement, it should have been the one shining moment in a life he’s hated since he was five. _You win, Moriarty_. No, Sherlock won. Or neither of them won. And it doesn’t make any sense at all, there is not an iota of logic to what the man did. The disappointment crushes his chest, and once again the air won’t come. He’s wheezing, choking, and Moran swears and sits him up. Pushes him forward and tries to help release his lungs. His hands are big and strong, and the feel of them – even through suit and shirt – makes Jim want to rip his skin off. But he can’t say anything. Talking is not an option.

‘Two hours. That’s all.’

He is pushed back down. He doesn’t bother pulling against the restraints. He doesn’t look at Moran. He doesn’t need to, to know his confiscated knife is sheathed in the back of his belt. Moran’s a soldier, he doesn’t leave weapons lying around. He’s stupid. They’re all stupid.

 

*

 

The knife is in his pocket. Moran has a second stab wound, but it’s not fatal. Jim was going to slit his throat, but he couldn’t lift his arm and he doesn’t like the feel of blood on his skin. So he left ten minutes ago, and now he’s walking. He’s outside. He can see Westminster Palace, and he’s on a bridge. MI6 headquarters is ahead, and a little to his left. His phone is ringing, once again with that very specific ringtone.

‘Excuse me. Aren’t you…sorry, but aren’t you Richard Brook?’

He turns his head. A man is smiling, but he stops very quickly. He backs away, almost into the road until he’s stopped by a tourist taking a selfie. The man mumbles an apology – to the woman, to Jim – and escapes with one, terrified, backward glance.

Jim swivels his head back around to face MI6, and all its cameras. He spreads his arms wide, just like Sherlock did. But there’s nowhere to fall, here. It’s a victory salute; hollow, painful, but a victory salute all the same. They’ll show it to Big Brother, when he gets back from crying in the morgue.

And then he drops his arms, and considers vaulting into the river. Stepping in front of a bus. Taking the gun out, and using its one bullet. But his phone is ringing again, and this time he picks it up.

‘You’ve been a naughty boooooyyyyyyyyy.’

He says nothing. His fingers are cold around the phone. Everything hurts, even though he can’t feel a thing. He can barely hear through the screaming.

‘Come to me.’

The line goes dead. He considers throwing the phone in the water, but puts it in his pocket instead. And for the longest time, he just stands, people swarming around him, as he stares over the land Mycroft rules. The heart of the British government, lying in shattered pieces. Never more vulnerable than in this moment…and Jim can’t bring himself to put his foot down on it.

But he knows someone who will. _Come to me_. Yes, all right. All right.

 

*

 

_Where did you go? I’m looking for you – SM_

Moran needs to be killed. But this helicopter first, and a trip over the water. Jim considers using the knife to slit the pilot’s throat, so he can find out what drowning’s like. He considers fishing his earbuds out of his pocket, but can’t move his hands. Moran’s blood is under the fingernails of the left, staining him. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at it, and immediately sinks under the weight of loss.

Jim has not lost anyone before, because there has been no one important, ever. He was never supposed to lose Sherlock. He…that wasn’t the _point_ , that was not why this game was played. Seconds pass and his throat is thick, his head aches, and there are fingernail marks dug into his thigh. Control; there must be control. He is always in control.

But he can’t stop seeing those arms spread. That moment where the world stopped turning, the universe holding its breath in the second before Sherlock’s weight toppled him forward. That second when motion stopped. If he had been close enough to grab, would he?

Yes.

…no.

But he would have wanted to. A second is more than long enough to run a problem through, see the outcomes, make a decision. Would he have grabbed?

Yes.

…maybe.

(No.)

 

*

 

Her voice is calm.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’

She is turned away, dressed in white again. Facing the back wall. He doesn’t watch her. No one watches them. The cameras are broken, and the floor is covered with shattered glass. Her feet are bleeding.

‘How you managed to overcome the human fear of death with no trouble at all. How you can take pain without a sound. How you can kill without the barest hint of remorse, or pity.’

She turns. She’s been crying.

‘But you couldn’t stop yourself falling in love.’

She says it like it’s a defect. Which it is, he supposes – and he’d be annoyed, if he really believed it were true. He has never quantified his feelings for Sherlock as _love_ , but maybe that’s the only term she can think in because she wants it so badly herself. Jim has been loved, in a way. He had a family. He chose to leave them behind, which is not the same as never having been loved at all.

His fingers tighten around the hilt of the knife as she walks closer. She steps through the edges of her cage, not seeming to care how much she damages her feet. He is reminded of how much he likes her, and for the first time since this morning, the screaming lessens a fraction. He cannot afford to be distracted around her. There would be leeway in other circumstances, but not this one.

‘People often have sex when they’re grieving. Do you want to?’

He gives it a thought, and shakes his head. Her fingers wrap around his tie.

‘Well, I do. Later. For now-‘

Her palm connects with his jaw, and the slap of it echoes around the room. He doesn’t flinch, or wince, or move. The pain flares for a second; two, four, and then starts to die. She slaps again at the exact second it begins to abate, so it can’t. Pain on pain. He watches her face twisting in agony and rage, as she hits him again, and again, and then her fingernails dig into his neck and scorch red, furious lines into his skin.

‘You weren’t supposed to let him _die_ , James.’

She picks skin from under her nails, and flicks it at his chest. Blood runs into his collar. His face hurts, but feeling anything is a welcome relief.

‘But you’re not talking. I imagine you can’t. Head in a bit of a mess, my sweet? Lost your one true-‘

His fingers close around her throat.

For a second, they just stand. He can see she’s surprised, for about a millisecond. James Moriarty has never openly hurt anyone himself, not since Carl - though he’d be the first to admit this is a touch of false advertising. He has hurt plenty of people, but they’re not around to tell…and anyway, the point is that he doesn’t _like_ getting his hands dirty, not that he never does.

But she knows this. She knows everything, doesn’t she? Except how to control him, because people need weak spots to be played with, vulnerabilities, things they want and things they love, stuff they’re striving toward and the things they’re willing to sacrifice to get there. Jim wants nothing, is not trying to get anywhere, has nothing to sacrifice.

And she smiles as she pushes into his hand.

‘Go on then. It’ll make you feel better. And Mycroft would be _sad_ as well as relieved, which is reason enough to let you do it.’

He lets her go. Sherlock is falling behind his eyes. Sherlock is gone, and Jim’s grip on reality slips again. There’s music in his head, a violin, the smell of Baker Street. Her hand strokes over the pain she’s left on his cheek.

‘Come on. I’ll make it alllllll better.’ Her arm wraps around his neck. Her body is warm even with her thin clothes, soft after a lifetime cooped up with not enough exercise or fresh air. He feels nothing about it, but lets her tug him forward into the cell by the front of his shirt. She doesn’t get to play very often, so he won’t begrudge her now. ‘But you’re more fun when you speak. I like your voice. I don’t hear that accent very often.’

‘You don’t need me to speak.’ And it hurts to. His throat is painful from holding his heart in it all day, bruised from the thumping of adrenaline and shock, swollen with tears he can’t shed.

She pushes him down to sit on the bed, and straddles his thighs. He blinks slowly. She grabs his hair, and tilts his face up to her.

‘Of course I don’t. And you don’t need me to, but I will. Shall I tell you about yourself, James?’

‘Boring.’

‘Not to me. Look at you. All dressed up, and still alive to show it off. I do like that suit, my dear. Can I have it?’

‘It wouldn’t fit you.’

She laughs, a high, affected sound. Jim thinks of Sherlock’s low timbre, and swallows. Sherlock’s suits, and his absence of ties. Eurus is at his waistband, unfastening him with deft fingers. Blood drips from the end of her toes, dropping silently onto the floor, or the bottom of his trousers, or his shoes. Sherlock’s wings fan out, black on blue, and Jim’s eyes close as goosebumps follow in the wake of cold dread, making him shiver under her hands.

‘I won’t make it better,’ she whispers in his ear, a second before biting it hard. ‘I will never forgive you for this.’

His hands lie loose at his sides, until she grabs them and pushes them up under her shirt. He operates on autopilot; cupping, fondling. She doesn’t blink enough, just like him. She’s staring into his eyes, not trying to hide how wet they are. He thinks about sinking his teeth into her eyeball. He never would, the reality would be beyond disgusting. But the look of surprise on her face as she shrieked, finally surprised, would be wonderful in the half-second it would take for her to find his knife, and plunge it into his throat.

‘You’ll never forgive yourself, will you, James?’

She kisses him. She hits him. The question sits like ice in the screaming inferno of his mind, as she rides him hard and makes his neck bleed, crying and crying and crying, because Sherlock was supposed to be _hers_ , he was supposed to give her one moment where she knew what it was to be human. And now he can’t. He was supposed to set Jim free, and he has not. He was supposed to be so much more, but he failed, he was not good enough, and now he’s gone.

Jim sits in the ruins of his suit, afterwards. She’s got a cigarette from somewhere. It’s not his. He only smokes for effect. She’s only smoking because she’s read that’s what comes after sex, and she’s _so_ curious about why the little people act the way they do. He doesn’t join in, because he gave up caring about such things more than twenty years ago, when he was free and she was a teenager in this place, with only the walls for company.

‘When was the last time you had an orgasm?’

He half shrugs. She smokes, eyeing the remains of his erection. Like she would ever be able to make him come. Only he can make himself come, whether he happens to be inside someone else or not. Or under someone else. Whatever; it’s all the same.

‘The last time you fucked someone, and imagined it was him.’

She stubs the cigarette out on her arm. He doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He straightens his tie over a shirt missing all its buttons, and thinks about standing up.

‘I should kill you,’ she declares, paying no more attention to her burnt and melted flesh than he would, if he’d done it to himself. ‘But I’m not that kind.’

He stands up.

‘Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I will forgive you. You’ve missed something important.’

He shrugs, and buttons his jacket over the ribbons she’s made of his tailoring.

‘But I won’t kill you. Far more cruel to let you live, my dear.’ She smiles vacantly, eyes too wide. He wonders if she really believes she could kill him, without him just letting it happen. He notes that she’s crying again, even with that smile. It’s far more cruel to let her live too. ‘He had one job, and he couldn’t even manage that. I apologise on behalf of my stupid big brother.’

He looks down at her. She’s mostly naked. The blood has dried on her feet. She smells of orgasm and dust, locked away here all her life. It’s a wonder the outside isn’t as rotten as the innards, the pulp of unbalanced chemistry eating her away year on year.

‘You should stay,’ she says, as he pulls his sunglasses from his pocket. ‘There’s nothing for you out there, anymore. You’ve lost your chance at freedom.’

He thinks it’s her that’s missed something. It hardly matters. She waves him away.

‘Go on. I’m going to feed the cannibals to each other. Or the staff to the cannibals. What do you think?’

He manages half a shrug, leaves her there on the floor, and walks out of Sherrinford unimpeded. Moran is standing by the helicopter, leaning on it with crossed arms. She must have broken into his phone and texted coordinates while she fucked him. Bitch.

 

*

 

Poland is cold. Jim sits in a rented house in Gdansk, and stares out of a window. It’s snowing early this year, not that it matters, not that he cares, not that he can move, or think, or even pretend to exist. Moran is…somewhere. Jim has not spoken in four days, and when the sun touches the horizon and starts to get eaten by the earth, he simply gets up and walks out of the door. Moran catches up with him at the airfield, just in time to join him on the plane. They touch down in the Ukraine, but Jim can’t be bothered to get off the jet. They fly to Switzerland. Barcelona. In Paris, he finally gets up but only because he can’t bear sitting any more. It’s morning by this point, freezing cold and raining, and Jim takes the car to Gard de Nord so he can get the Eurostar, and Sherlock Holmes is still missing, still absent from the world.

It’s like he had a hand in Jim’s chest. When he fell, he ripped everything out with it. There is nothing left. There were enough issues with feeling things, and emotions, before all this and now the world is paper. He can stare at the picture of life painted on it or he can rip it to pieces with his bare hands, and neither option makes him feel anything at all. Not for the first time this week, his mind returns to the chemical weapons factory in North Korea, and the terribly useful store of nuclear material held there. He got in once, he can get in again. World War III would suit him perfectly about now.

He emerges into a weak sun hovering tremulously above London. He hates this place so much. Setting foot in it brings a dread that makes him want to vomit, and Moran takes his arm as he sways.

‘Why are we back here?’

Jim turns and walks out of St. Pancras. He’s not breaking a five-day silence for a question as boring as that. And when Moran tries to get in the taxi with him, he closes the door in his face. He types the destination in his phone and shows it to the driver, who immediately questions the distance and his  ability to pay the fare. Jim drops a thousand pounds on the tray in front of him, the driver shuts up, and they are on their way.

It’s been raining. It always rains in London, in England, it’s fucking _always_ grey and terrible, but it seems especially bad today. Even when they fade out of the city and fields start making themselves known, the lowering clouds do nothing to cheer the landscape. It’s past lunchtime, and it’s going to be dark in a few hours. Jim closes his eyes because he can’t bear to watch. The car rolls on, and maybe he even sleeps a little. Or maybe he just loses time, because it doesn’t seem long before they pull up in front of a large house, set in trees at the end of a long driveway. There are columns around the front door, and a large open porch. A boot scraper by the mat, which does _not_ say ‘welcome’.

Jim lets himself in. He wanders through the hall. He touches a table here and there; a book, a folded newspaper. He sits in the chair by the lit fire, and does not look up when, some hours later, a brandy is placed at his elbow.

He tilts his head in silent thanks. He does not speak, because he can’t. In the end, it’s up to Mycroft to break the silence, and he does it only to tell Jim something he already knows.

‘She’s dead.’

He didn’t _know_ know. But it was logical. For a second, he is filled with blazing hate. His lip twitches with the force of it. Mycroft, he knows, is watching as he sits down.

‘You’re jealous.’

He wonders whether Mycroft knows that all the anger in him – and there is a _lot;_ he is entirely fuelled by rage – comes from jealousy. His whole life, breaking himself on wanting the impossible, eaten away by the things other people had.

Mycroft sips his drink. He is very thin, after only five days of grief. His skin is grey, even in firelight. His thinning hair is more limp than usual. Tailoring ruined by his body’s insistence to shrink under the heavy weight of loss. Jim is uncomfortably aware of his own trousers being too loose at the waist.

‘Everyone who was at Sherrinford is dead. The staff. The other inmates. My sister. I hope you’re _pleased_ with yourself, Moriarty.’

Jim’s turn to sip his brandy. It warms his throat enough to allow words. ‘Shouldn’t you be thanking me?’

‘Eurus was not simply a problem to be removed. She was my _sister_.’

‘You took her life years ago. It would’ve been kinder to kill her as a child. This is boring. You know this. Your tedious attempts to establish a familial bond are justification for not putting her out of her misery years ago. Move on. I’m not here to assuage your guilt.’

The silence prickles. The drawing room is large and the fire doesn’t do a good job of heating it, but it feels too stuffy all of a sudden. He half wonders whether Mycroft has drugged his drink, or poisoned it, but he doubts it. And wouldn’t care if he had.

‘I’m an only child now, Mr. Moriarty. Within the space of a week, and entirely due to you.’

‘Do you want to kill me? Do you think you could?’

‘Yes, I do. But I won’t. My sister and I are in agreement on how much crueller it would be-‘

‘-to let me live, yes yes, repetition is boring for both of us. You went to see her, then? To say goodbye.’

Another hesitation. Mycroft tries to hide his grief behind his glass, whether real or faked. ‘She knew I’d come. She…timed it, so I wouldn’t miss it.’

‘That was good of her.’

‘You would think so.’

Jim smirks humourlessly, and sets his glass down. ‘Give me the message.’

Mycroft tilts his head. After a few seconds, he seems to decide there’s no point playing dumb, as Jim knew he would. Neither of them have the energy for elaborate games.

‘She said you’ve missed something important.’

Jim feels one eyelid twitch of its own accord, just a tiny bit. She must have meant it, to tell him the same thing twice.

‘Are you dying to know what it is, Mr. Holmes?’

Mycroft regards him for a long moment. They look at each from six feet away, both calm, both washed-out imitations of their former selves. The chess masters who lost the game, because they expected too much of the pawn.

‘To be quite honest, James-‘ Mycroft finishes his brandy, sets the glass down, and stands up. ‘-I no longer care.’

Something they agree on, finally. Jim blinks slowly, once, a silent acknowledgement. Mycroft looks down on him, and his voice touches on kindness when he speaks. Or pity, perhaps. Something.

‘My car will take you back to London.’

Their eyes meet only once. The game will restart eventually. They both know it, simply because neither have anything else to do. But it won’t be the same. The heart is gone from both of them. There is no longer anything to win.

 

*

 

He knew he’d come here, of course. He didn’t want to, but he does need to. He stands at the threshold with his existence in his hand, his heart blocking his throat, hollowed out and creaking from an inner storm with nothing to dim itself on. None of the pieces fit, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. He’s not bored, but he’s not thankful for it. This _hurts_ , and he didn’t think he could feel that anymore. There’s always pain, yes. But not like this.

His closes his fingers around his life, and hangs on tight. He takes a step forward. The dust of Baker Street, thick even before it lost its occupants, settles into his lungs. It smells faintly of old cigarette smoke, and chemicals, and tea. The skull is still on the mantelpiece. Sherlock dances in the beams of light slipping between thick curtains, free as air, shimmering in the winter sun. Jim walks through him, breathes him in. Something groans inside, and cracks under the pressure of grief. His fingers loosen their grip. He has to stop walking to draw the pieces of himself back together; there is no hope of mending them and there never has been, because he’s been a cracked mirror since he was a small boy. But he has been dazzling, radiating light off his splintered pieces. Now he’s just reflecting darkness back into himself, and if you run through a hall of mirrors, you’ll never get back to where you started. You get more and more lost. There is no way out.

He looks at his face in the mirror over the fire. His cheeks are more hollow. His jaw has too much angle. His eyes do not approach sane. It’s been a long time since he couldn’t mask himself, and he’s shaking as he pulls a long breath in. Sherlock is supposed to be here. Not _here_ , because if he’d done what he was supposed to, he’d be on a merry rampage through Europe now. But he would still be occupying Baker Street, even if he were on the other side of the world. It doesn’t help that his belongings are exactly where he left them. It means no one has been able to bring themselves to move them. Mrs Hudson is not downstairs. Mycroft would not bother himself with mere possessions. The parents…who knows, or cares? As for…

He turns his mind away from the other one. He’ll be sick, or pass out. He should eat something, maybe. He drifts through the kitchen and touches the table once, and then puts his hand on Sherlock’s bedroom door and gives it a push.

It’s a very calm room, he thinks. He’s seen it before, obviously, but it’s different now. Everything was brighter when Sherlock was alive, but even taking that into account, this room is dim, calm, and relaxing. Exactly the sort of place minds like theirs need to decompress. Jim glances around it, and withdraws. He’s not The Woman; he’s not about to lie in the bed (not anymore). Whatever he and Sherlock were, this is not the room that defines them.

He walks back through the kitchen, and sits in Sherlock’s chair. He puts his arms on the rests, and crosses one leg over his knee. He waits, hearing the clock that is not ticking, because no one has wound it up. He counts the silence until the noise in his head threatens to burst his eardrums. Then he pulls his knees up to his chest and topples sideways, curled up on the seat, breathing in leather and a dead man’s aftershave.

It doesn’t matter, of course. Sherlock being dead. Nothing matters because everyone dies, and the planet is going to die, and the universe is going to die, and nothing anyone, anything, ever does means a damn thing. There could be a million different species alive in the infinite expanse of the universe, and nothing any of _them_ does matters. So this pain doesn’t matter, and the final game doesn’t matter, and he could die in this chair or go and step in front of a taxi, and that wouldn’t matter either.

But he did want it to. Six days ago, on the rooftop of Barts. He wanted to die, and Sherlock was supposed to set him free. The game wasn’t to kill _Sherlock_. His sister had plans for him later. The whole thing…Jim closes his eyes, and tries not to hurt. And then remembers he might as well, and allows the ache in his chest to spread until his lungs threaten to shred through his ribcage. The whole thing was supposed to let him stand face to face with an equal, just once in his life. That’s all. And then he could go, because that would be enough.

Sherlock was not an equal in the end. And now Jim can die anywhere, but he’ll never know a moment’s satisfaction. The hope of just one connection is gone.

 

*

 

His vision swims back to normal when there are hands on him, yanking him to his feet. A second later, searing pain that crashes into his shoulder blades as they hit the edge of the mantelpiece, followed by his spine, and then his head knocking the mirror. The skull rocks on his grave of stacked books. Jim registers the knife pinning mail to the wood, and then endeavours to forget about it. He brushes the crease caused by fists from the front of his jumper instead, and tries to muster an emotion. Humour, perhaps. Derision. Scorn. All he can manage is tedium.

‘Mycroft told me not to come here this morning.’

Why does the man have to breathe so hard? He sounds like an indignant horse. ‘And yet, Doctor Watson, here you are.’

‘Yeah. Well. If I’m told to stay away, stands to reason he’s up to something.’

Watson is about three seconds away from trying something adorably uncouth, like punching him in the face. And he’ll take it, and he won’t even grab the knife and bury it in his eye.

‘What are you doing here?’

Jim looks him over. Watson’s grief is not like Mycroft’s. Big Brother is a hand puppet with nothing holding him up, beyond appearances and the obligatory stiff upper lip. Watson is small, and broken into pieces, and he would be dangerously livid if he could just find the energy. Jim recognises a lot of himself in the man in this moment. But he says nothing, and makes no sound when the fist flies through the air to connect with his jaw. He just snaps his head to the side, and drinks blood from the inside of his cheek. Pain screams unchecked through him and then circles the inside of his skull, bouncing and gibbering, and flinging itself against bone in an effort to get free. Jim breathes in, and waits for the second strike. It’s harder than the first; he could swear he hears Watson’s knuckle crack through the rage bubbling up through his own centre, like a lava spring drawn from some unplumbed depth of fury. He doesn’t try to tamp it back down, because he’s empty enough that there’s room for it to fill him without it burning anything important away. He just blinks and draws his head back, looking down – yes, _down_ , just a fraction, and being taller than anyone is always hilarious – on Watson, with blood trickling down his chin.

‘What. Are you _doing_ here?’

Jim’s tongue brushes his own lower lip. Even if he wanted to answer, he can’t summon the will. Who cares why he’s here? He closes his eyes, and hears a violin; his head sways as rich notes bounce off the dust dancing in the air, pushed into a swirl by the arrival of Watson’s anger. How apt. Sherlock only really came alive when Watson showed up, but it was alive in such a mundane way. He became human, as judged by ordinary people. The very thought makes Jim weak with horror.

‘One phone call to Mycroft, and-‘

He rolls his eyes, and cuts him off. His voice sounds dead even to his own ears. ‘You’re forgetting, Doctor, that I don’t exist. And poor old Richard was just a pawn…one exonerated by the court. You can call every security service in the world, and they’ll have nothing on me.’

Watson hits him again. Jim hears a door opening below, feet on the stairs, as pain rips his head apart once more, the lava starting to rise, and rise, and near the top. Once it’s out, it won’t be going back in.

‘ _Get out of my house, Moriarty.’_

Watson is incandescent. It’s the only time he’s ever been interesting, when grief is tearing him to bits. And he never knew Sherlock as he was supposed to be known; Watson only ever knew him as a _man_ , and what’s interesting about that? Sherlock was so much more. He was a beacon in the darkness, a burn on pale Irish skin, and the balm that soothed it as well. He was the reason to keep playing, and the means to find an end. What was he to Watson? A friend, nothing more. Someone to admire. Jim wants to point out how stupid that is, what a waste, but John has shoved him into the mantelpiece again. He’s got tears in his eyes, more anger than grief. His woollen jumper is grey, his jeans are boring, his shoes have no taste. Just a man. But Sherlock chose him, and the unfairness of it breaks something inside all over again. Of all the people out there, he chose _this_ one. With Jim right there, waiting for him in the shadows. And he waited so long. He waited forever.

His shoulders hit the mantel; pain flares up his back, and explodes in the screaming expanse of his mind. The knife is in his hand. His arm is stuck in the air, the point of the blade half an inch from Watson’s eye. There are thick fingers around Jim’s wrist, belaying murder by the smallest margin. Watson has gone still, vibrating with hatred and rage, but knowing how close he just came to death.

Jim blinks slowly, deliberately. Blood runs unchecked from his mouth. Moran is a mountain, holding him at bay. His fingers are big, secure. A little too secure; their grip grinds the bones in his wrist together. Jim stretches his neck until the tendon pops.

‘I came,’ he says quietly, precisely. ‘Because I missed something. I thought it might be here.’

There is confusion in the room. It flits across Watson’s face, and radiates silently from Moran. Jim holds eye contact with the shorter of the two, then opens his fingers and lets Sherlock’s knife fall from them. It clatters to the floor, and comes to rest on the rug in front of the fireplace. Moran releases his arm, and he brings it to his side. After a few more seconds of staring, and without breaking eye contact, he holds out his hand. Moran puts a handkerchief into it, which he uses to swipe blood from his chin.

‘Why you?’ he says, and watches Watson blink in that affected way he has. Every movement slightly exaggerated, as though he has to go through life emphasising his displeasure, or surprise, or incredulity. He’s only muted when it comes to happiness, because heaven forbid anyone should be seen to enjoy themselves. The stoic Englishman. The Soldier. Moran’s the same. It’s pathetic.

Watson’s shoulders go back a fraction.

‘Because I let him be more than a brain.’

Jim tilts his head.

‘If you believe that, you’re more stupid than I thought, and I already put you somewhere in the vicinity of an amoeba. Try again.’

‘I don’t have to justify it to you, Moriarty.’

But he will. Anger will compel him, along with the simple desire to speak of Sherlock again. To make him seem a great man in front of the person who beat him, when nothing could be farther from the truth. He is already shifting from one foot to the other, and Jim finds himself hoping he’ll say something that makes sense of all this. If Watson can make Sherlock into the man Jim thought he was again, he might actually be grateful.

‘Because I needed him.’

Everything is very still. Jim tries to find the silence of the clock again, for one second before something in him ruptures and he flings himself forward with a snarl; knife be damned, he’ll do it with his bare hands. Watson rears back, startled. Moran’s arm shoots out and catches him around the chest; Jim’s momentum is fuelled by a rage so pure, it takes the whole weight of the man to hold him back. There is no finesse in this, no show, no polish. This is what Sherlock has made him; a return to the raw hatred that started as a child, and the desire to throw himself at the world until it broke, or he broke, it didn’t matter which. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Watson whispers, taking a step back. Some unruffled depth of Jim’s mind registers his shock, and the involuntary disgust and fear at seeing someone unmask themselves. No one ever does that, if they can help it. ‘Jesus Christ, get him out of here.’

Moran is dragging him away. At the top of the stairs, Jim starts to laugh. By the time they’re at the bottom he’s weak with it, slumped against Sebastian’s side, being half-dragged out of the door.

 _I needed him_ , says the voice in his head. It’s not Watson’s voice. It’s got an Irish accent, and belongs to a twelve year old boy. But that boy couldn’t say it aloud any more than the man, and now look where they are. Everyone needing Sherlock Holmes, and him not around for any of them.

 

*

 

‘What did you mean, you missed something?’

They’re in the Conduit Street house. Jim doesn’t care how Moran found his address, or how he let them in without a key. Jim stares out at the rain from the windows that make up one wall of the living room, a shadow against the light, exposed for the world to see.

‘Go away, Moran. And don’t come back.’

But Moran doesn’t go away. Jim stands in one place until time no longer has meaning, listening to the noise in his head. He can’t think past it. He can’t work. He can’t move. Moran is somewhere in the background, never speaking but always there.

Jim wakes up four months later, on the verge of death. Malnourished, light-deprived, sick, raving. So far beyond the line of sanity, he can barely remember a time he could pass as normal. But he gets up one day, and it’s Moran who catches him when his legs give out on the first step.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he says, and shrieks a laugh at the surprise that creases the man’s face.

Then he disappears back into himself, and it’s a month before he recognises a face again.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

His brother once asked him what it was like in his head. It was not framed in a polite way, nor an inquisitive one, nor a sympathetic one. It was one step removed from _why are you like this?_ Bitter, angry, and resentful. So Jim had said nothing, even knowing that he would have liked someone to try and understand, and already sure the only person who’d be able to was a kid called Sherlock Holmes, who didn’t know James Moriarty existed.

But the question was asked again a year later. It came out after a funeral, and it was the brother’s way of asking whether Jim was the reason they were at a funeral at all. It was asked more politely, with a hint of fear, even a touch of wonder. Because if Jim had been the reason behind the casket, it was an audacious move. Horrific, of course. Beyond belief. Inexcusable. But an undeniable work of genius.

Jim, aged eighteen, had sipped his beer and looked around the pub, crammed to the rafters with family, extended family, and friends. He’d said, ‘what did you see when you walked into this room?’

His brother had followed his gaze at first. Then he’d actually thought about the question – he was quite good at that, getting to the point – and shrugged. ‘People. The food on the table. Aunt Sal smacking Jordy for nicking a sausage roll. The windows. That girl behind the bar, bursting out of her top.’

He’d stopped talking. Jim had waited with a faked air of expectation, only he knew that was going to be it. When the silence stretched, he’d sighed and closed his eyes, taking them back twenty minutes, walking himself into the room.

He’d started with the people who’d been nearest to the door. Uncle Jack, Aunt Moira, their kids Joan and John. They were assigned a number each, and then Jim explained what they were wearing, how old the clothes were and where they’d come from; the drinks they were holding, the styles of their hair, the age of their shoes. Then he’d fanned out backwards, linking the first four to the next nearest people, giving the distance each person was standing from each other in precise mathematical units; describing each individual, noting at which point they moved and who they went to talk to, who put a drink down, the volume of the liquid in each pint or wine glass, the varying states of intoxication and who was likely to fall victim to it first. He told his brother the precise measurements of the room and how much of it was filled, the angle and refraction of the light falling through the glass, adjusting the numbers as people left to find the bathroom or came back in from the lounge bar; when his brother threatened to interrupt, his face verging on horrified, Jim turned the whole lot into statistical order, arranging numbers and equations to make sense of the movement and interaction of the people, classifying them into groups, reducing them to pure numbers that spilled from his mouth as effortlessly as breathing. He stopped when the room – as it was twenty minutes earlier – was contained in neat rows of symbols, front and centre in the forefront of his brain. Ordered, precise, correct. Understood to the last decimal point.

He had taken a drink to ease his dry throat. His brother was silent. Jim put his glass down.

‘That’s what happens when I walk into a room. Every room. The world is an ongoing calculation.’

But he had not fully explained. He’d left out the worst of it; allowed it to be a party trick for his brother to gawp at. Because it has always been more than that. He doesn’t just quantify everything he sees; his brain also processes emotion, social cues, body language, micro expressions – and everything projects forwards. It is not just a snapshot of what’s happening as it happens, he is immediately supplied with the implications for the future. If _that_ person talks to _this_ person, under the influence of _that_ much alcohol and _this_ much stress, they’ll tell _that_ secret which means _this_ will happen, which will cause _that_ event, and on and on and on on on, and _it never stops_ because the world is a constant, endless barrage of information and data, and he has no filter whatsoever. That’s what he tried to explain to his brother, in terms he could understand. He absorbs the world, and cannot make it stop.

He has always been proud of himself for not being more mad than he is. As angry as he was with Sherlock for starting drugs, it’s difficult to blame him sometimes. He’s used drugs himself. The difference is that he didn’t lose himself to them. He controlled it, and never tried to _hide_ from his brain.

It doesn’t matter anymore. That was his mind when he had Sherlock to anchor him, and he could at least pass for sane. These days, he stays in his bedroom. Every room in his house is decorated as plainly as possible, and there is never a mess, anywhere, ever. He has injured people – and himself – for leaving the slightest disruption before now, because even something small starts a whole new wave of calculation, working backwards to find the cause, culprit, reason. It’s exhausting to listen to his brain sieve the world down to its atomic numbers just to find out why there’s a stain on his carpet, and who put it there. He doesn’t _care_ if there’s a stain on his carpet, but he’s forced to find out all about it anyway. It’s like being forced to watch a full-length movie about people brushing their teeth, and choosing clothes to wear in the morning, but not having the power to leave the cinema. He rages at himself, _just shut up, who cares?_ It never works, and he’s left desperately searching for anything that will divert him away from the mundane.

The distraction was always Sherlock. He would imagine what sort of game they might play together. The things they could do. He used to imagine it as a chess match, but came to favour a warped version of Monopoly. Real governments as the pieces. Landing on each other’s territory, mobilising the national press when landing on Chance, sending pieces to jail and using the legal system of an entire nation to get them out. A _real_ game, with the globe as their board. That would be good. That would be _fun_. And in the end, when they stopped, scrapped, had fought for every inch of each other and ended up standing face to face, with neither the winner and neither the loser, they could look each other in the eye and shake hands over a game well played. Lives well used.

And now Sherlock is gone. He barely played at all. There was no handshake, and no meeting of minds. Jim has no distraction left, only the broken pieces of himself. Each shard shows him splintered, unable to draw himself into a whole – and whole is the only way he can move through the world, and control the numbers that make it into something resembling sense. He can only order things with something to drive towards…and there is nothing. He is adrift. There’s no reason to live, or to die, or to register where he is or who he’s talking to. Sometimes he recognises Moran, but his presence is stimulus that needs processing, and he just _can’t_. He can barely even eat, because noticing food means a wealth of information on where it came from and how it got here, which part of an animal and the angle of the knife when it was butchered, the country of origin and then everything _about_ that country, and in the end, it’s easier just not to look at anything at all. He spends months with his eyes as shut as he can make them, laughing at Moran’s attempts to get something into him that’ll keep him alive. The air becomes made of colour he can touch, and words smell like music, and the room melts into a place of pure, white, nothing. It all stops hurting, though he sometimes becomes aware of how wet his pillow is. He’ll find himself standing on the window ledge, sticking his arm out into snow. Moments of lucidity end when he asks, _where’s Sherlock?_ because he can’t find him in his brain, and then remembers he’s not coming back.

It’s a long, difficult year. He doesn’t remember most of it. When the worst of the insanity has burned itself out, he doesn’t want to. He simply becomes aware of lying in half-darkness at times, with a figure standing nearby. Everything is always very calm, very quiet. It’s as if Moran found an ‘off’ switch for the world, and made it cease existing for a while. At least, he thinks it’s Moran. It looks very like Sherlock sometimes, but doesn’t everything look like Sherlock? Jim knows he’s dead, but he talks to him constantly. He never replies. It doesn’t matter. Sherlock’s life is as familiar to him as his own, so he relives it over and over, trying to find the piece he missed that would explain why he stepped off that roof, instead of taking the out Jim so obviously left him.

He never finds the answer. He is starting to think there isn’t one. Which means despite all appearances, and the presence of Watson, and a driving love for the work, Sherlock was – underneath it all – looking for a reason to _stop_ as well. Maybe he didn’t take the out because he didn’t want it. Maybe that’s what Jim missed.

 

*

 

A year since the day it happened. The rooftop of Barts.

Jim’s put a suit on for the first time since he was here last. His legs are shaking with the effort of standing, and the walk up the stairs nearly made him pass out. It’s as grey as it was blue last year, drizzling, and not too cold; a _nothing_ sort of day where nothing is going to happen. Coming back might have been a mistake, but he’s been feeling the need to go outside of late. There’s some yearning for air, and an open sky to fall into. Maybe it’s just the end he craves, again, after a year of not being able to articulate wanting anything. If he looks down at his arm, he can see through the blue sleeve of this fine suit and examine the scars he’s left on himself. Or maybe the suit is torn because it’s the one he wore when Eurus ripped it apart. It’s hard to tell. It doesn’t matter.

He stands on the ledge, and spreads his arms wide. His coat doesn’t billow and stretch as impressively as Sherlock’s did, even with Jim being so much smaller now. But it makes a very fine show anyway, he thinks. Suitably dramatic. He ignores the phone vibrating in his pocket, doesn’t hear its ringtone, because it’ll just be Moran saying _step back_ and making it obvious he’s watching. No matter what he does, or says, he can’t seem to shake the man. But he’s not sure he’s real, a lot of the time. Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind.

‘Here we are, Sherlock. You and me.’

And the problem. The final problem. Jim closes his eyes and imagines leaning forward, just as Sherlock had. That’s all you have to do, let gravity do its thing. He has no idea why he isn’t, because he still has no fear of death and no desire to live. The only reason he can give himself is that his belief of a year ago holds true; that death should make a point, or be a good show.

A door opens behind him. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes. He is facing the sky now, willing himself upwards; wanting to fly, to be free. Arms outstretched, rain touching his cheeks. Soft drizzle, gentle as a kiss. It’s nice.

‘The final problem,’ he murmurs to the air, and counts the footsteps coming closer. ‘Sebastian?’

‘Moriarty.’

He smiles sadly. Moran sounds like Sherlock sometimes. He lets his hands drop to his sides, and doesn’t turn around. It’s a pleasant fiction.

‘You haven’t talked to me all year. I’ve been waiting. You never say anything.’

‘I’ve been busy. And you haven’t been yourself.’

‘No point talking to me when I couldn’t bring my A game? That’s rude, considering how long I waited for you to be worth anything.’

A foot scrapes over tarmac.

‘But you understand, because you _did_ wait. You know it’s important we face each other as equals. That’s what you want.’

‘Yes.’ Jim nods at the sky. ‘I suppose so. And that’s why you can come now. A dead man to face a madman.’

There’s the briefest hesitation in the footstep coming closer. He remembers the way his own step faltered when he realised Sherlock was going to do the unthinkable. When he realised he’d judged his plaything wrong, and he was only a man after all. The disappointment still crushes his lungs, and his head drops. He mutters, ‘Sebastian,’ and hates the man for existing in this space that does not belong to him.

‘You’ve always been insane.’

‘Not like this.’

‘Yes. But you’ll get better. You’ll have to, to play me again.’

Jim looks at his shoes. And further down, because the building drops from underneath his toecaps. The place of Sherlock’s last breath is a hundred feet, and four seconds away. He can see the paving stone that cracked under the force of his body.

‘Yes,’ he says absently, and stretches his neck to the side. ‘I suppose playing you in my head is better than nothing. I did it when you were alive, because you were such a depressing failure most of the time.’

‘You knew I could be better than I was. Isn’t that what you think?’

‘I did. Look how it ended up.’

There’s a tiny huff of laughter. Sherlock’s voice is closer now, six feet behind him. Jim is not tempted to look around.

‘You missed something, Moriarty.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘You’re still missing it. Do you want to know?’

He shrugs, not much able to care. The voice is very soothing. It was always nice in his head, deep and satisfying to listen to.

‘I was already better than I was, but you’d never be able to see it. I learned how to have a friend. You would never understand why that’s important.’

Jim’s lip curls. Hatred curls through him, practically the only emotion he can still identify. But other things hang off it too. He’s twelve, with Carl laughing in his face, calling him names and making everyone else laugh too. He’s five, happily expecting friendship at school and never getting it. He’s fifteen, pretending to be nice, and unable to share a single, genuine thought with another person. Convinced he was happy.

‘Fat lot of good it did you,’ he says, spitefully. ‘It got you killed.’

The voice is closer still. Four feet away. ‘Did it, though?’

‘Killed, ruined, with a destroyed reputation. Everyone thinking you’re a fraud. John thinking you tricked him. Was it worth it?’

‘To save their lives? Yes, it was worth it.’

If he’d been face to face with Sherlock saying that, he’d react the same way he had with Watson. A lunge and a snarl, and no Moran to stop murder this time around. What he hates most is that he could only exploit Sherlock’s desire to keep them safe because he understood it. Not the need to protect them, he has no idea what that feels like. But he always knew that _Sherlock_ would feel it, because ordinary people do. Even as he tried to convince himself Sherlock could be more than the rest of them, he knew he wasn’t. That’s what secured victory. Apt, really. Winning in the most conventional way was never really winning at all. True winning would mean never having got off this roof.

‘What do you want, Sherlock?’

‘The truth.’

Jim’s turn to huff a laugh. He turns his face to the sky again, and closes his eyes. ‘Truth’s boring. And you’re not real. I might not even be standing on this ledge.’

He senses another hesitation. Then Sherlock says, ‘I had a sister. You knew about her. You never expected me to die.’

He acknowledges this with silence. Sherlock will get it.

‘I’m sorry, Jim.’

He blinks.

‘I want _you_ to know the truth. You must have been disappointed. And it’s obvious what that’s done to you. I _am_ sorry.’

He looks down at his suit. It is in a pretty bad state. It doesn’t fit anymore, to begin with. He’s never been the biggest man, but this is extreme.

‘You’re _sorry_.’

‘Yes.’

The voice is practically beside him. He has an impression of a person in his peripheral vision, with dark hair, the way Moran’s goes when he’s been caught in the rain. Tall, broad-shouldered. His phone is ringing non-stop, just as it did a year ago. He hears it behind the ever-present noise that screams between his ears, and the undertone of Bach he tries to latch onto when he wants to be still. People will never understand how _loud_ it all is. It’s unbearable, now he is not forcing order on himself. Now there is no Sherlock to focus on. His fist clenches.

‘Why?’

‘If I’d realised sooner the game wasn’t to kill me, I wouldn’t have died.’

Maybe this is supposed to make things better. Jim’s throat fills with bile.

‘You ruin everything by being stupid, and now show me how _boring_ you are by telling me how you’d play it differently? God, why did I bother?’

He hears the venom in his own voice, but it sounds more bitter and tired than anything. He sways forward an inch. There’s a jerk beside him, a hand ready to grab.

‘Jim.’

‘Go away. I don’t want to talk to you if you’re going to be like this.’

‘You’re making me like this. I’m in your head, aren’t I? This is the version of me you want.’

He can’t really argue with that logic, though he’ll certainly try later. If there is a later. He swivels, his shoes scraping on the ledge. He looks down from his elevated position. It’s the only time in his life he’ll look down on Sherlock, so he might as well make the most of it.

‘What truth do _you_ want?’

Sherlock looks up at him, all clear blue eyes and impossible cheekbones. He looks older, which is weird for a dead man. But Jim’s always had a remarkable gift for seeing the future. Knowing how Sherlock would have looked is no great feat.

‘She said you missed something, and I know what it is. If she knew it too, why did she kill herself?’

Oh, that. Jim makes a dismissive sound, and almost looks away. But he doesn’t, because Sherlock has come back to him, and he might not come again.

‘I can’t know that if I don’t know what she thought I missed. She killed herself because her beloved brother wasn’t around to make her a person. Because he didn’t live up to expectations.’

There’s a hint of steel in the voice, now. ‘Your expectations were your problem. And you could have treated her like a person. She’s more you than I am.’

Jim snorts this time, and pulls his gaze away to look at the sky again. ‘You saying that proves you know nothing.’

Eurus never understood why people felt the way they did. Jim understands perfectly, even if he doesn’t experience the world that way himself. He can see it in others, and imitate it. And of course, there are other things. Things he feels just like everyone else. More, in some cases. 

‘I would have liked to have known her.’

‘Yes, a damsel in distress. Right up your street.’

It’s stopped raining. A breeze plays across the rain on his cheeks, making them cool and uncomfortable. He’s not strong enough to stand out here much longer. Maybe not strong enough to walk down the stairs.

‘You think I should want to know you instead.’

He shrugs. ‘You can’t claim to be pissed off because I tried to kill you. I didn’t. She did though, and years before I crossed your path.’

‘…it’s different.’

It isn’t, though. Jim looks straight forward. If he narrows his attention and disregards the ledge beneath him, it’s a bit like flying. He can imagine himself floating above the city.

‘Jim.’

He doesn’t look around. Sherlock is too much of a disappointment, always. He has never been able to see what’s right in front of his nose. Jim only shifts when he feels a hand brushing his, and then closing around it. It’s warm, and the skin is a bit rough. It’s weird.

‘Don’t do it.’

He’s surprised at his own subconscious. It’s not the sort of thing he’d expect it to tell him. Unless it’s just Moran being dull.

‘You did miss something before, and you are right now. You just can’t see it.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes. You’re not well, and you wouldn’t ask even if you were. That’s fine - but think about it. And don’t do it until you’ve figured it out.’

‘It won’t be worth it. Nothing’s ever worth it.’

Sherlock’s voice is warm too. Ever so slightly amused. ‘It will be this time.’

‘How do you know?’

The fingers around his squeeze, just a little, before they let go.

‘I just do.’

 

*

 

He wakes up in bed. He’s wearing pyjamas. Rain blatters the window as the wind whistles past. It’s very warm, very comfortable; cosy and half-dark, like the formless world between dreams and reality. He blinks slowly, and doesn’t move.

‘Moran?’

‘I’m here.’

He’s always here. Jim has given up trying to make him go away. His eyes close again, falling back towards sleep. He thinks there’s a hand on his forehead, brushing back his hair, but he can’t be sure.

‘Where’d you go, Jim? I was trying to reach you.’

He half-smiles, drowsy. Moran often asks that, as if the places he goes to in his mind are real. Indulging him, but it’s cute. When it’s not annoying.

‘Sherlock came back.’

The memory makes him smile more. It’s a warm feeling; as warm as that hand had been. He vaguely registers the one in his hair faltering, but it doesn’t matter.

‘Yeah?’

‘Mm. Just for a bit.’

He can’t manage more. He feels extra tired today, legs like rubber even though he can’t have moved. They ache, though they’re still. There is phantom rain on his face. He’s forgotten what real rain feels like.

‘What’d he say, Jim?’

He’s not going to explain it to this moron. It’s between him and his own mind. And it doesn’t matter, because nothing does, and because Sherlock is gone and he has no one to blame but himself.

But there’s one thing he can say. He murmurs it sleepily, on the verge of oblivion.

‘Said I missed something.’

Maybe he’ll stay alive to figure out what it is. Maybe it’ll be something worth knowing. Maybe it’s the real final problem, and maybe it’ll grant him peace. He’ll think about it in the morning, when he’s less tired.

‘Jim?’

He can hear Eurus laughing in the recesses of his mind; the bits he sometimes thinks hold what remains of his sanity. If he could find his way into the pockets where she lives, he’d be able to pull himself together. She’d be scornful, and he’d make himself whole just to remind her that he has never been her pawn; that it was her that came to him needing help, and it’s not his damn fault Sherlock turned out to be useless.

‘Jim, let go.’

His fingers are twisting in the duvet, and Moran is trying to make him stop. She sings to him, mocking ( _I that am lost, oh who will find me?)_ and his lip curls in a silent snarl before Sherlock’s voice floats across the shards of his ravaged mind. He latches onto it so he can breathe again, and settles back to replay his words. _It will be this time._

Moran is sitting on the edge of the bed. Jim opens his eyes long enough to look over his face. Even in the half-light, there’s that boring expression of concern, and… _need_ , he thinks, but he can’t be bothered to work out why. He rolls to his other side, his back to the man, and closes his eyes. Sherlock smiles against blue sky. His coat fans out like wings, and Jim crumbles once more, a man made dust as Sherlock falls, and falls, and falls again. No amount of imagined words can keep him whole.

‘Your coat is wet.’

Jim’s humming the tune she liked. He thinks she sang it when she fucked him. Maybe he was the last person to hear it. But he doubts it, because he’d lay money she was singing it when she died, which means Mycroft would have that honour.

‘Jim? I know what she meant.’

But Eurus is now silent, and he’s not going to waste his madness on Big Brother. It’s a year to the day since Sherlock fell, so it’s okay to think about him. As if he ever thinks about anything else, when he thinks at all.

‘ _Be not afraid to walk in the shade,_

 _Save one, save all, come try..._ ’

He plays the notes, watching the tips of his fingers pick them out of the air. Moran’s hand is warm on his back.

‘Go to sleep. Tomorrow might be better.’

The bed rises as weight lifts off it. The song drifts off in his mind, taking the day with it. _(I that am lost, oh who will find me_.) Everything is heavy, and he is very tired. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

‘For a genius, you do miss the obvious sometimes.’

Jim lets his mouth curl into a smile, searching around the sharp corners of his mind for where Sherlock is hiding. Maybe he’ll finally come out and play. He was always more fun like this; a great, shining ball of possibility. So it’s okay that he’s gone, and okay that it’s made him crazy. As long as Sherlock stays alive in his head, he can never be a disappointment again.

 

 


End file.
